From P10 to P1,500 per Sqm: How Baguio City Turned Benguet Soil into Pure Colombian-Grade Graft

Social Housing Tomorrow, Kickbacks Today — The Baguio Special

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — December 11, 2025

1. The Boneheaded Deal

MGA ka-kweba, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, behold the greatest magic trick in Philippine local governance since the invention of the “ghost project”: Baguio City officials, in the year of our Lord 2023, forked over ₱101.46 million of your money for two parcels of the most expensive rice paddies in Tuba, Benguet.

The going rate they proudly paid? ₱1,500 per square meter.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s official zonal value? ₱10 per square meter.

That, dear taxpayers, is not a purchase. That is 154 times overprice. That is fiscal arson committed with a straight face and a supplemental budget.

Commission on Audit’s (COA) polite description: “excessively higher.”

My translation: Somebody just staged the most expensive barbecue in Cordillera history, and the meat was the public treasury.

***“From ₱10 mud pie to ₱1 500 soufflé—taste the magic of taxpayer seasoning!”***

2. The Theater of the Absurd

The City’s defense is performance art so rich it deserves a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

“Good faith!” they cry.
Translation: We meant well while lighting ₱100 million on fire.
“Land banking!” they proclaim.
Translation: We’re hoarding dirt today so we can flip it tomorrow, because nothing screams prudent governance like speculative real-estate gambling with the 20% Development Fund.
“Social housing!” they add, two years too late and with all the sincerity of a beauty-pageant answer.
Translation: We just remembered poor people exist when COA came knocking.

And the cherry on this sh*t sundae? They wave the lifted COA Notice of Suspension like it’s the papal bull of infallibility. “See? COA let us proceed!”

Yes, kuya, COA lifted the suspension the way a bouncer lifts the velvet rope for a second before the police raid begins. It means you submitted the paperwork, not that the paperwork stopped stinking.

Meanwhile, the numbers scream louder than a Baguio ukay-ukay vendor:

Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) zonal value: ₱635,850 for both lots.
Tax declaration Fair Market Value (FMV): ₱141,190.
What Baguio paid: ₱101,460,000.

That’s not a valuation gap. That’s the Grand Canyon with pine trees.

And the funding source? The sacred 20% Development Fund, which, under Department of Budget and Management–Department of Finance–Department of the Interior and Local Government (DBM–DOF–DILG) Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1, s. 2020 and Republic Act No. 7160 (Local Government Code), can only be used for priority projects already programmed in the Local Development Investment Program (LDIP).

Was this miracle social-housing site in the LDIP? Of course not. The mayor himself called it “land banking for future sale or development” – i.e., we bought it because it was there.

Congratulations, Baguio City Hall. You just turned a development fund into a slush fund with the smoothness of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a taxpayer’s wallet.

3. The Stench of Intrigue

Let us now enter the part every Filipino already knows by heart: the unspoken rumors.

A ₱100-million overprice doesn’t just happen. It is engineered.

Was the seller a kindly widow who suddenly discovered her swamp was made of gold?
Or was it the usual playbook: dummy corporation → recently consolidated titles → insider tip that City Hall is desperate for “land banking” → instant 15,400% markup → quiet distribution of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) envelopes thicker than the Baguio phone directory?

In the Philippines, when government pays 154 times zonal value and calls it “exigency,” what they mean is:

“We had to move fast before the kickback window closed.”

And who approved the supplemental budget?

Who signed the checks?

Who lifted the COA suspension and why?

Who owns the seller, and how many degrees of separation are there to the mayor’s golf buddies?

The silence is louder than Session Road traffic.

4. The Legal Guillotine

Here are the statutes sharper than a Benguet bolo:

Criminal

Republic Act No. 3019 §3(e) (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) – Causing undue injury through gross inexcusable negligence or evident bad faith. Undue injury? Try ₱100 million in quantifiable daylight robbery.
Republic Act No. 3019 §3(g) – Entering into a contract grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the government. Grossly? Manifestly? My God, it’s glowing in the dark.
Article 217 Revised Penal Code (RPC) – Malversation, including through negligence (yes, the Supreme Court recognizes “malversation through gross negligence”).
Articles 171-172 RPC – Falsification, if (when) those mysterious appraisals turn out to be more creative than a Wattpad romance.

Administrative (the part they’ll actually feel)

Grave Misconduct, Conduct Prejudicial to the Best Interest of the Service, Gross Neglect of Duty under Republic Act No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees). Penalty menu: dismissal, perpetual disqualification, forfeiture of retirement benefits. Delicious.

Civil

COA Notice of Disallowance → personal liability of every approving and certifying officer to refund the entire ₱101.46 million, or at least the ₱100 million excess. Solidarity liability, babies. One for all, all for your bank accounts.

The Office of the Ombudsman only needs substantial evidence for administrative charges and probable cause for criminal. With COA’s audit report in hand, that threshold was crossed the moment the check was signed.

5. The Chessboard of Scandal

Prosecution side:

Immediate disallowance → force personal refunds.
Ombudsman fact-finding → preventive suspension → Sandiganbayan trial.
Subpoena the appraisals, the seller’s bank records, the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs), the COA suspension-lifting memos. Watch the rats scatter.

Defense side (the officials’ only real moves):

Pray a friendly appraiser appears with a 2022 report claiming the land is the future site of Baguio’s answer to Dubai.
Hide behind “council approved it” (a shield made of toilet paper).
Leak stories to friendly columnists about how this is all a political demolition job by [insert rival politician here].
Offer to “return” ₱20 million in quiet settlement and call it a day.

Likely endgame, because this is the Philippines:

Administrative dismissal for the small fish, six-month suspension for the big fish, disallowance reduced to ₱40 million after “negotiation,” and zero criminal convictions because “for lack of evidence of bad faith.”

The seller keeps the money, the officials keep their freedom, and the taxpayers keep the shaft.

6. The Verdict & Demand

This is not a procurement irregularity. This is grand larceny wearing a barong tagalog and waving a city council resolution.

Baguio City Hall just treated the public treasury like an ATM with no daily withdrawal limit, and the PIN was “social housing tomorrow, promise.”

I demand the following, and I demand it loudly:

Ombudsman, file the goddamn cases – criminal, administrative, civil – yesterday.
Sandiganbayan, put the approving officials on preventive suspension before they can “retire due to stress.”
COA, issue the Notice of Disallowance for the full ₱101.46 million and make every signatory pay personally. Solidarity liability is not a suggestion.
Congress, amend the Local Government Code: any land purchase above 300% of BIR zonal value requires automatic National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) investigation and public bidding.
And to the good people of Baguio: recall your mayor, recall your council, or at least stop electing people whose idea of “land banking” is turning your money into someone else’s beach house in Panglao.

Because if this ₱101-million heist walks free, the next one will be a billion, and the one after that will come with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a brass band.

The pine trees are watching.

So am I.

– Barok